One of my items on the bucket list is to try food for astronauts. Not those ice cream ice creams by freeze-dried astronauts (which I still absolutely love), but the real food that is designed for astronauts to eat in space. I especially hope to get some shrimp cocktail, but beggars cannot be voters, as they say. I’ll take anything.
But how is astronaut food designed? In space, astronauts face extremely different environmental, physical and mental situations, which we do not have to worry about on Earth. Astronomy actions how food is chosen and what aspects of it are essential to become spatial food.
“We have crews that need to function and be healthy at these extremely high levels for extremely high stress,” said Grace Douglas, a senior scientist with the NASA Advanced Technology Research Group at Johnson Space Center. “Food has an impact on every aspect of physiology, and food can make you either very healthy or sick.” So it looks like I’m taking the astronauts’ diet very, very seriously. There are probably no lunches in orbit.
Proper nutrition is essential to ensure that astronauts’ bodies remain healthy and to prevent bone and muscle loss during deployment. In order not to lose body weight, astronauts must eat between 2,700 and 3,700 calories a day. If the diet does not cover all the basics, astronauts take dietary supplements to support needs such as B12, omega 3 fatty acids and iron. In short, if the food is healthy for you here, it is still healthy for you up there.
After decades of perfecting their knowledge of nutrition and food technology, NASA dietitians have begun to move away from supplements and nutrient planning even further. a diet in which astronauts get those nutrients directly from fruits and vegetables. Food supplements cannot provide phytochemicals, which are biologically active compounds that you get from fresh produce. But then there’s the cargo room issue. All those fruits and vegetables take up space.
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The solution? Freezing drying and thermal sterilization, a process used in the canning industry for sterilize the food after it has been packed by heating it. Not only does it reduce volume, but it also keeps the food shelf stable for long periods of time. The packaging looks like those small packages of tuna that you can get in the canned fish section of the grocery store. Some of these foods must last up to five years for long-term orbit missions.
Then, of course, there is the issue of taste. The food should taste decent, at least. Astronauts it’s not possible eat strangely monotonous foods, day in and day out. Textures are very important: no one wants to eat pasta all day. A new freeze-dried product that has been a great success is a freeze-dried mango salad, which includes a crunchy walnut.
Sending products on supply flights is good and all, but the ultimate goal is to try to create a self-sustaining food source. So NASA experimented growing leafy vegetables in space, what appears to be natural progression. It has been successful with greens and even flowers, so adding fresh things to their nutrient-dense diet could be not only healthy for our favorite space travelers, but also delicious. And it’s a Brilliant strategy to combat homesickness through fresh foods that you can get below.